The Hunter Girl
by SentientExistence
Summary: Maisie Donner never took notice of Katniss Everdeen until she was a national celebrity. Lyme sees Katniss later and sees nothing but a puppet. And somehow these tales are intertwined, because drugs and lies can only do so much to change the truth.
1. Chapter 1

**I've always wondered how others saw Katniss Everdeen, and it seems that now, I finally have an answer! This is a stand-alone one-shot, but please tell me if you want me to develop it into a two-shot or even a multi-chapter story. Thanks!**

Maisie Donner was five when she first saw Katniss Everdeen.

They were in the same class together, at school, and the teacher had them all sit in a circle and introduce themselves. Maisie shot her hand up when the teacher asked for volunteers, her eyes bright with excitement. "My name's Maisie and I like pink! Especially the cupcakes in the store with pink frosting! Mommy buys some for me every week..." She doesn't notice the hostility hidden behind cool gazes in the eyes of the children with gray eyes and olive skin. Doesn't notice the brief flicker of annoyance in Lavander's. Not the open outrage in Eric's, or the skeptical glance that Katniss gives her. As if anyone could afford cupcakes every week. Maisie does notice, however, when Katniss stands up and sings the valley song. That's when she became determined to be friends.

Maisie Donner was five when she first talked to Katniss Everdeen.

It was lunch. Maisie took her lunch (bread with cheese, a cup of water) and sat down next to Katniss. The girl barely acknowledges her other than scooting over a bit to make room. Maisie wastes no time with her perky introduction.

"Hi, I'm Maisie, what's your name?" she asked. Katniss turns toward her. "Katniss." Katniss answers Maisie's questions with quiet, short answers. "Yes. No. I guess."

By the end of lunch, Maisie decides that Katniss is a grump and moves to another table.

Maisie Donner was nine when she was partnered with Katniss Everdeen for a school project.

After two years of separation, the two girls were in the same class together once again. The teacher drew names out of a hat. Maisie was doodling on a scrap of paper when she heard her name being called.

"Maisie and... Katniss!"

She sighed- _I really wanted to be partners with Eloise- _and moved over to sit next to Katniss. Katniss is quiet, as usual, keeping her head down and working quietly on their assigned worksheet. Maisie gets to work on the other sheet, sneaking a peek under her bangs at Katniss every once in a while. No matter how long she looked, Katniss kept writing away, with no change to her posture.

"Hey- do you remember what plant a "serri bush" is?" asked Maisie. partly because she was confused. Mostly because she wanted to get Katniss to talk. And Katniss did talk. For a sentence, at least.

"It's the bush in front of the door." Katniss replied. Maisie glanced out the window and saw the bush in all its glory, before scribbling down a few notes.

She would try many times in next ten minutes to get Katniss to open up, until at last, Maisie sighed and at last abandoned her attempts to catch Katniss in the act of... something. The merchant girl brushed her blond bangs out from her face and rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long project.

Maisie Donner was twelve when she took notice of Katniss Everdeen again.

There were the rumors. Rumors that Katniss could hunt. Rumors that she killed a lynx and sold it at the Hob. Rumors that she bribes Peacekeepers to look the other way when she takes a loaf of bread, or a pair of candlesticks. But none of them were substantiated, though you know how rumors travel. Anyone who's ever been in a middle school does. Maisie pondered it, but never thought of it as a real possibility. She told herself it was stupid to believe such rumors, foolish to establish a reputation as a gossip. But the real reason was that if Katniss could escape District Twelve for an hour a day, what's to stop a merchant girl from doing the same?

Absolutely nothing. And so Maisie ignored the rumors, and tried not to pass them on. Slowly, one by one, they sparked out of existence. And Maisie kept her head down, if not exactly quietly, through the entire thing.

Maisie Donner was fourteen when she sees Katniss leave District Twelve for the first time.

She woke at the crack of dawn, her heart thumping in fear. A vague sense of fear filled her, and Maisie rolled over. _That was just a stupid nightmare._ she thought. However, try as she might, Maisie couldn't get back to sleep. She sighed, standing up. "I might as well go look outside to see what time it is." Maisie muttered to herself. "There's no way I'm getting back to sleep."

Carefully, to not wake her sleeping sister on the thin mattress beside her, Maisie walked to the window, cringing as one of the floorboards made a particularly loud creak. She peered through it and smiled at the sunrise, painting the sky with tinges of pale pink and pastel yellows. Maisie was about to go back to the mattress when she saw a figure slip through the chain link fence.

Her mind recalled the rumors that had been so popular through the pre-teen years, and Maisie's eyes widened. That was Katniss Everdeen. She really did hunt. Maisie sighed and wished she had never woken.

Maisie Donner is sixteen when Katniss Everdeen volunteered to save her sister.

She was standing in the crowd, terrified, her heart thumping. _Not me, not me, not me _she whispered. And it wasn't her. It was a name she recognized, though. Prim. Primrose, the sweet little girl who sold goat cheese to some of the merchants. Katniss's sister. Maisie is relieved that the tribute isn't her, and it must show on her face. relived that she's not going to die. And angry, because Prim is.

She isn't aware of the disturbance caused by Prim's hysterical sister, shoving her way through the crowd. It's only until Katniss Everdeen is standing on the stage that Maisie realizes that Katniss sealed her own death sentence.

Maisie Donner is seventeen when she realizes that Katniss Everdeen has somehow doomed District Twelve.

Maisie wakes in a panic, to find rubble standing where one wall was. She screamed, long and loud, her eyes wide. Coughing, the girl stumbled out into the fresh air. Maisie is terrified, her breath is heaving in sobs of fear. She runs as fast as she can, away from her house, right to the Connelly's- their next-door neighbors.

It doesn't occur to Maisie that nothing is safe. It doesn't occur to her that the wall she leans against might not be secure. it doesn't occur to her that she might be making a fatal mistake. It doesn't occur to her hat she might get crushed by the wall, already weakened by a long frost and half-destroyed by the firebombs. And most of all, it doesn't occur to her that she's dead until Maisie Donner is chocking on smoke and cursing the hunter girl's name.


	2. Chapter 2

Guilt is bitter and cold and you drown in it far too easily, that's what Lyme learns after she sits at her station, in the Mentor Room, after watching Clove's eyes flutter like butterfly wings and her heart rate spike and spike and then disappear. That's what she learns after she sees the coldness in the eyes of her grieving family, after she puts on the cold, steely look in her eyes like she's never seen children who could be her own fall in a spray of blood.

Until Katniss Everdeen comes along and Lyme takes in her anger and knots it up because otherwise, a body would be found somewhere in a back alley of the Capitol.

Lyme doesn't hate her, not really. It's a mix of surprised and apathetic when Katniss Everdeen stands in her pretty yellow dress with her hair in those pretty ringlets and says those pretty words that drop from her lips like berries from a hand. After mentoring virtually every year for 18 gladiatorial death matches, Lyme only sighs, sets aside her headset, and takes down the display that shows Clove's vitals.

Love. It's an ingenious idea, one that the Capitol will eat up. The star-crossed lovers of District Twelve- their faces are pasted on every tabloid, billboard, and trashy Games magazine the Capitol has to offer. Lyme has to have some respect for the Twelve's strategy this year, even if it was so obviously a front to gain some sponsors. District Twelve should really stop trying, really.

Watching Katniss onstage, sitting in the lap of her practically fiancée, Lyme discovers a whole other side to guilt. And it's an ugly side, alright.

It goes without saying that the mentors from Two would do anything to save two kids instead of one. Twice the PTSD. Twice the angry, wild eyes, twice the rage, twice the anger, twice the confusion. But twice the feeling of redemption that isn't really any sort of redemption, because there is nothing noble in teaching kids how to kill other kids, some who aren't even teenagers yet.

It's the side of blaming the victor. The side that lets you take all the rage and grief and guilt and channel it towards those who actually made it out alive. The side that Lyme never lets herself look at, because keeping a civil front is everything, no use in wasting time and energy promoting a rivalry that shouldn't exist, not really. Better to focus on today and how to coordinate sponsor calls so that Clove has enough to buy knives, so that something will work out.

So when Lyme smiles at the cameras and smiles again at the two love-struck teenagers standing before her, she almost wishes that Katniss had died in the arena, because then she wouldn't have to knot up her emotions and blast them all out, later, sometime in the future, with a pillow and a room where nobody had ever died, ever.

That night, Lyme makes a few calls, and asks Heavensbee to save her a seat at the monthly group dinner. It's just a little get-together between pals, just to talk over some of the delicacies the Capitol has to offer. In that talk, Lyme steels her nerves and asks casually how many hoverplanes will be available in a few weeks or so.

* * *

><p>When Katniss Everdeen visits District Thirteen, Lyme lets out a quiet curse and wonders how broken Everdeen really is, before putting on her steely face again and marching out into the field.<p>

It's not that Lyme still blames her. Not really- the blame will never go away, but it has certainly faded. It's that Katniss will have-should have to deal with the trauma. With the nightmares. All while being the poster child of the rebellion.

It's a shock when she sees Katniss Everdeen and Johanna Mason standing on the field opposite her, lined up with the rest of the soldiers. Lyme calls out roll, stretches, and leads a few warm-ups, all while quietly massaging her temples where no one can see her. When they begin the five-mile run, Lyme is almost relived, and takes off rapidly, leaving the rest of the trainees far behind, before doubling back and running with them.

Katniss bails out quickly- a mile, if Lyme can judge distances correctly. Lyme nods and lets her go, without question.

Victors understand victors. It's been so since the beginning of the Games.

* * *

><p>The bombs rain down on the shelter. Lyme sits on the side of her bunk and stares at her communicuff, which is stupid, of course- the communicuff receptors are down. She runs a hand through her cropped brown hair and goes back to the beginning of Katniss's Games, to how the Girl on Fire became a star. There's nothing out of the ordinary there, nothing at all.<p>

"Lyme!" she almost doesn't hear the words called out, wrapped up in her own thoughts. Lyme turns and stands up, walking to the motherly looking woman who called out her name. "Follow me- Mr. Heavensbee requested an audience with you." Lyme nods and walks behind the woman.

* * *

><p>The meeting is long and tedious and for a second, Lyme thinks she's going to fall asleep. All until Heavensbee mentions Katniss Everdeen, how to best use her, and Lyme sits bolt upright and questions every single possibility that's laid out on the table.<p>

Keep her safe, as the face of the rebellion? _No- Katniss will demand to fight, to reap some penance over the bodies of children and men and women._

Let her go out and fight, then? _Of course not, she will be a top priority target for the remaining Capitol forces._

Both, of course! _Neither was a good idea in the first place! If you would just stop for a moment and consider all that Everdeen is facing right now, you would realize that the best thing we could do would be to heavily sedate her until the entire battle is over._

The last comment is her combined frustration and anger. One of the generals, a tall man named Marsen, lays his hand on her shoulder and suggests that she lie down and take a break.

By the time Lyme steps out, everyone is sleeping aside from a few tossing and turning individuals. She makes her way to her bunk and falls onto it before pulling the blanket around herself. Lyme waits a few minutes to make sure that nobody is watching, then rolls over and screams into her pillow.

* * *

><p>Broken. that's all that Katniss will ever be, broken. Katniss is a puppet. Lyme watches from the VIP seating in the crowd, her hands folded in her lap, her gray eyes straight ahead. Katniss readies her bow.<p>

The girl is exhausted. Lyme realizes. Her pale skin and dark circles can't be covered up by any amount of make-up. The way she stands is completely defeated. it's over for the Capitol and over for Everdeen. The girl who is the walking dead onstage is a far cry from the girl who commanded flames to leap from her shoulders and the girl who saved her love. If he even is her love.

Lyme watches Katniss draw back the string, watches her every move. The split second before the arrow flies, Lyme sees it- the tiny tilt in her body.

As the arrow flies through the air, Lyme leaps from her seat and runs.


End file.
